


Brightwater Keep

by Vana



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Child Neglect, Gen, Pre-Series, Selyse as a little girl, drunk parent figures, heartbreaking childhood angst, just trust me on this, nothing gets easier
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-07
Updated: 2015-04-07
Packaged: 2018-03-21 19:32:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,784
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3703123
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vana/pseuds/Vana
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Modern AU Selyse and the challenges of childhood.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Brightwater Keep

It’s 10:30 at night. Selyse has read every _Chronicles of Narnia_ book — only the parts she likes, only the parts with food and books and no scary lion gods making threats and throwing dwarves into the air. She peeks over the edge of the sofa, looking out the window at the sidewalks of the apartment complex, lit with yellow, bug-studded lamps. Nothing moves. Nothing moves for _hours_. 

Her aunt had only gone out to run a quick errand. Of course, Selyse knew what that meant: she was going to the bar to have a drink. “Why don’t you get a bottle of wine and bring it back here,” she had asked — whined — as Aunt Rylene puts on makeup, blue eye shadow, blusher, lipstick that’s burgundy and looks wrong with her red sweatsuit. Selyse doesn’t know why Rylene wears sweats to the bar. Selyse promises herself, she will never, ever wear a sweatsuit to a bar.

Aunt Rylene doesn't answer. She's Ryam Florent’s little sister who was never supposed to have a kid — not _this_ kid, not this bookish nervous skinny thing, not this kid who seems to be walking on eggshells every minute and asking “are you mad? Auntie, are you mad at me? Auntie? Are you? Tell me you aren’t.”

This was not the child Rylene had ever wanted. But Ryam had died in a car wreck in 1975 and her mother had left town with a guy who sold Quaaludes and Axell and Alester were just too busy with the family business and their own kids and no one had seen Colin in six years and it didn’t matter anyway because Rylene was _the woman_ and when there was a kid to raise, you know who got the kid? The woman. It was not fair in the least.

Their first week together, Rylene had tried to take the girl to get her ears pierced. Seven years old, she was way too old not to wear earrings. Selyse screamed and cringed from the gun, and when Rylene yanked her by the arm and told her _stop yelling, you’re embarrassing me_ Selyse didn’t make a sound but she made such an _awful_ face when she sat in the chair that it made her ugly face even uglier — the mall piercer couldn’t do it. “She’s too scared, Ma’am,” said the teenage girl with the piercing gun. “She’ll shake too hard and it’ll tear her earlobe.” Selyse almost screamed again. But she didn’t. She swallowed it down. She got out of the chair. They went home in silence.

It’s 11:35. Selyse, ten years old and still with unpierced ears, has read even the parts of _Narnia_ she didn’t like. Lion gods throwing dwarves. Rivers shouting at children. The Witch torturing Edmund and then making out like it was his fault. Aslan _also_ making out like it was Edmund’s fault. He was just a little kid, just Selyse’s age really although she felt so much older. She knew you were supposed to love Aslan like Jesus and if you didn’t like Jesus you weren’t supposed to love Aslan and she didn’t care much about Jesus at all but she couldn’t help loving Aslan anyway, sometimes, when he was being nice and not being a big jerk god. It was like sometimes Aslan forgot how to behave.

The night hasn’t changed except to get buggier. Selyse thinks Rylene is going to be awfully overheated in those sweats. _Why_ would you ever wear sweats to a bar …? Thinking about that keeps her occupied for another five minutes. She thinks of all the clothes in her aunt's closet and picks out outfits for her to wear the next time she goes out. 

She counts bugs running up against the living room window to get at the lamp next to the sofa. 

She listens for a car in the parking lot.

She isn’t scared yet, but she knows it’s coming.

  

Or, Rylene could come home — clearly it’s been long enough to have _a_ drink. And that would end all of this. The knot in Selyse’s stomach could loosen. The crawling feeling in her scalp would cease. Her breathing would go back to normal.

It’s 12:45. She’s read some of the Henry Miller book _Quiet Days in Clichy_. It’s a book she always wants to read but thinks Rylene wouldn’t like it so she doesn’t. Reading it now is an act of defiance, but it doesn’t feel good. Selyse wonders what else she can do that she’d like to do when her aunt isn’t home. 

She goes into the master bedroom. She takes a picture of Ryam, Rylene, their parents and their brothers off the top of the dresser and she screams at it. “FUCK YOU,” she yells, though her voice is just a whisper. It sounds loud in her head.

She takes the picture under Rylene’s covers. Peach sateen with too many pillows. She buries herself under the covers and holds the picture and screams, and screams, and screams. Then she kisses the face of her dead father who was crushed between cars and a utility pole and she says I love you and good night. She puts the photo back. She makes Rylene’s bed. She closes the bedroom door. She seats herself on the sofa.

 

 It’s 1:20 in the morning. Selyse has school tomorrow but she can’t sleep, she can’t go in her bedroom, she can’t take off her clothes and put on her pajamas, she can’t do anything but sit here in front of the window, staring out at the bugs, the reflection of her hair and glasses against the streetlamps, and the silent sidewalks.

“Go get a book, Selyse,” she says to herself. Out loud, it echoes louder than the scream. She can’t get up though. What if — something happened? What if Rylene came home? What if she came up to the apartment without her keys and Selyse wasn't watching?

She starts to bargain with herself, and the clock. She knows the bar and the number by heart. She knows the bartender’s voice. She knows which one will be there. She knows she needs to act _very casual_ when she calls or else she’ll embarrass Rylene. In fifteen minutes she’ll call.

Time has never crawled so slowly.

  

Selyse has sat so long in one place that the sofa’s upholstery has etched its pattern deep into her arm, and when she moves it, the fibers tear at her skin. She turns the digital clock back around from where she’d turned it facing the wall so she would stop staring at the red digits. It’s 1:26.

On the sidewalk, nothing moves.

In the air, nothing moves. Even the night bugs have gone to sleep.

Finally she gives up and picks up the phone. She never had the self-control she wishes she had, and she’s nervous, so very tense that her hand shakes and messes up the number twice before she gets it.

Four rings. Five. Sx. Then a loud roar. “Fifth Street Tavern, howc’n I help you?” comes through like louder static.

“Can I talk to. Hi. This is Selyse. Selyse Florent. Is, is, Rylene there by any chance?” She drops her voice down a half octave on the second “is,” trying to sound older, maybe like a girlfriend instead of a child, but it creeps up again at “Rylene,” when she forgets to try to sound like anything other than what she is. 

“Jus’second.” The bartender puts his hand over the receiver. Selyse closes her eyes, trying to imagine it: the man weaving among patrons, looking for a woman in blue eyeshadow and red sweats. She forgot what it was like to have her eyes closed, she’s had them open so long at the window.

“Selyse?” Her aunt’s voice is there, bleary and drunk, but the relief floods through the little trembling body like an electrical current, live and vibrating. Selyse collapses against the cushions with the phone squeezed against her face.

“Are you okay?”

It’s Selyse asking, not Rylene. Selyse needs to know if her aunt is okay. Rylene ask Selyse? No. It never occurrs to her to ask. The child is always fine. It’s as though when Rylene leaves she can turn Selyse off like the television and nothing happens at all until she returns.

 “I’m fine. What do you need?” 

“Nothing — um — I just wanted to make sure you’re all right.” She won’t ask when Rylene is coming home. She won’t. She won’t ask.

 “You oughta be in bed,” slurs Rylene.

“I am.” Selyse is lying. She is always lying, because if she didn’t lie she would tell everyone that this happens — once, twice or four times a week, twelve times a month, a mark on her kitten-poster calendar for every night she’s been left alone by the only person who’s supposed to take care of her. _You are the only mom I have_. But she lies. “I just woke up and wondered if you were … okay.”

 “I’m fine. Go back to bed.”

Then Selyse races to put on her pajamas and crawl in bed and she lies there in the dark, pretending to be asleep so the lie isn’t quite so black, until the front door cracks open at 3:19 a.m. She listens. Nothing but keys, the thump of Rylene’s purse, a pee, and the the toilet flushing. Rylene is alone, so Selyse doesn’t have to worry about seeing a strange man when she gets up in the morning. 

Athough some of them are nice. There was the guy in the wheelchair who played the piano until late. He taught Selyse how to play “Heart and Soul,” the top part and the bottom part. Rylene laughed and smiled and Selyse loved her and she knew she was making her aunt proud.

 

It’s 5:30 a.m. Selyse is getting ready and Rylene is up making coffee. She drives Selyse to school on her way to work. Selyse has one friend at school, whose name is Victaria. No one else talks to either of them. In homeroom, Vicki passes Selyse a note. “Wutz [up arrow]?” it says.

“Notnig,” writes Selyse back. Her handwriting is off the lines and messy because her hand’s shaking because she’s so tired. What else should she say?  _The only mom I have left me to die in our apartment._ No, _my drunk-ass aunt left again so I read dirty books until the bitch came home._ No, _I had an okay night but I’m glad I’m here now._ Even that’s not true. Which of the lies is most true? Better to say nothing at all. “Nothing,” she writes again, crossing out the first attempt. “U?”


End file.
